A juror was dismissed Monday after reporting that a woman dropped a bag of $120,000 in cash at her home and offered her more money if she would vote to acquit seven people charged with stealing more than $40 million from a program meant to feed children during the pandemic. “This is completely beyond the pale,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in court on Monday. During the trial that began in April, defense attorneys questioned the quality of the FBI's investigation and suggested that this might be more of a case of record-keeping problems than fraud as these defendants sought to keep up with rapidly changing rules for the food aid program.
      • bazus1@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        I’m shocked that you’d think that any amount of money, even 60k, would get me to compromise my civic duty.

        • Kaity@leminal.spaceEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          40k is only a years salary for me so idk why they thought that would be anywhere near enough.

  • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
    0·
    5 months ago

    This is a real world example of a question I’ve always had: if someone attempts to bribe you by giving you money up-front with the promise of more later, but, like in this instance, you turn around and report it, do you get to keep the money after reporting the attempted bribe?

    The article says they handed it over to police (I’m assuming as evidence of a crime), but I’m wondering if there’s any legal precedent for them getting the money back after the trial is over. It seems like it’d be advantageous to allow people to keep the money in cases like this.

    If you’re forced to relinquish the money, then there’s an incentive for the juror to keep the money (at the risk of criminal charges) and you have to hope that the juror’s sense of morality is able to overcome the cash temptation. $120k is a lot of money and would probably pose a significant moral dilemma for most people in this economy.

    However, if the juror is allowed to keep it after the trial is over, then there’s no downside for the juror to report it. There’s no moral dilemma because they get to keep the cash for doing the right thing. If anything, there’s an incentive for the juror to report it because then the cash is no longer illegal so there’s no longer a criminal risk to keeping it and the prosecution gets evidence for another crime to hit the defense with. The alternative is keeping the cash at the risk of being caught and thrown in jail.

    Edit: tried to rephrase the question to make it a bit clearer.